Israeli Arabs Win, Sharon Loses

The Supreme Court of Israel Thursday overturned a ban on two Arabs running for re-election to the parliament in the voting coming up on Jan. 28.

In a rare news conference, Sharon Thursday evening angrily dismissed allegations of financial misconduct that have overshadowed his campaign for re-election.

Israel's election committee had banned two Israeli Arab politicians from the elections on grounds that they made statements supporting Palestinian terrorism, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger.

The ruling is expected to help block a tidal wave of resentment by Israel's large Arab minority, and was praised by the Arab Knesset members, Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bishara, as a victory for democracy that will help Jewish-Arab relations. The decision is likely to mean a larger Arab turnout in the elections, and that could hurt Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Also Thursday, four polls conducted in the wake of new corruption charges indicated that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may have lost his wide lead over dovish challenger Amram Mitzna and is no longer assured victory in the Jan. 28 election.

A month ago, Sharon was slated to win by a landslide, but a bribery scandal in his Likud party and fresh allegations against Sharon himself have cut support for his Likud party by at least 25 percent.

That means Sharon will have to depend on moderates to form a stable government.

A while back, Sharon was being called the Teflon prime minister, reports Berger, but nowadays that name doesn't stick.

The affair is being called Sharongate, and in the news conference, Sharon called it a conspiracy to bring him down, just three weeks before elections. He also said it was despicable libel aimed at seizing power through lies.

The high court ruling was rendered by 11 justices, a number usually reserved for landmark cases. The court ruled unanimously on Tibia and 7-4 on Bishara. The judges' arguments were not immediately released.

"Arabs in Israel will have a feeling they are not orphans of Israeli democracy, they are citizens of Israel," Bishara said.

Many of Israel's 1.2 million Arab citizens saw the case as a watershed in their troubled relations with the Jewish majority. Israeli Arabs have long complained of discrimination at the hands of Israeli governments, and the disqualification of Bishara and Tibia was seen as an attempt to curb the Arab voice.

Meanwhile, the PLO Central Council on Thursday reviewed a first draft of a Palestinian constitution, but made no decisions because three-fourths of the 128 members were kept away by an Israeli travel ban.

A constitution is a key element of Palestinian reforms sought by the United States. Israel, which has also pressed for reforms, imposed travel restrictions on Palestinian officials in response to a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 22 Israelis and foreign workers in Tel Aviv earlier this week.

One of the most significant changes put forth by the 222-article draft constitution — which is to form the basis for a future Palestinian state — is the addition of a prime minister to head the government, said Planning Minister Nabil Shaath, head of the committee writing the draft. The precise relationship between the prime minister and the president are to be discussed further, Shaath said.

In recent months, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has come under growing pressure to share power and appoint a prime minister who would take over the day-to-day running of the Palestinian Authority. However, Arafat has resisted the idea, promoted by the United States and reform-minded Palestinian legislators.

The draft does not address two key issues — the borders of a Palestinian state and the fate of 4 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants — but declares Jerusalem the future capital of a Palestinian state. All three issues would have to be settled in a future peace agreement with Israel.

The document, drafted by Palestinian, Arab and European experts, also contains articles on civil rights and the separation of powers.

Thursday's meeting was little more than symbolic defiance of the Israeli travel ban, with only 30 of the council's Ramallah members showing up.

"They (the Israelis) did not manage to block this meeting," Arafat told reporters. "I consider it a Palestinian challenge while we are managing to meet with this small group of members in this besieged place."

A majority of the PLO Central Council (PCC) members have to be present to make a decision. The council is a mid-sized decision-making body, bigger than the Palestinian legislature — many of whose members also belong to the PCC — and smaller than the Palestine National Council.

Shaath said the plan was to have the PCC endorse a first draft, present the constitution to the public for debate, and then send a final version back to the PCC.

The Central Election Commission had accused Bishara of inciting violence against Israel, including during a trip to Syria where he praised Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, while Tibi allegedly sided with Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority against the Jewish state. Both legislators denied the charges, saying they oppose violence, and were simply criticizing Israeli government policy.

In other decisions, the high court upheld the candidacy of Baruch Marzel, a Jewish extremist who was once a leading figure in Kach, a movement founded by U.S.-born Rabbi Meir Kahane and later outlawed as racist.

The court also disqualified the candidacy of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, saying he had not been out of the army long enough to run for parliament. Mofaz is a former army chief of staff.

Thursday's polls indicated that Sharon's right-wing Likud party is continuing to lose seats in the 120-member parliament, a trend that began about a month ago.

Under the Israeli system, voters choose parties, not candidates for prime minister. A party leader must stitch together a majority coalition tobwin the premiership, and as Likud slips, the task of forming a government that once looked like an automatic Sharon success becomes less clear-cut.

A survey in the Haaretz daily showed Likud winning 27 seats, down from about 40 at the beginning of the campaign in November. Labor was up from 22 to 24.

According to the Haaretz poll, Likud and its allies would win only 61 seats, a bare majority, down from 67 in November, while Labor and its partners would receive 40 seats, up from 27. Centrist parties — Shinui and Am Echad — would get 19, the poll predicted. The Haaretz-Dialogue poll questioned 521 eligible voters and had a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.

A survey for the Yediot Aharonot newspaper gave Likud 28 seats, Labor 22 and Shinui 17. It polled 653 people and cited a 3.4 percent margin of error.

The Maariv daily's poll showed Likud winning 30 seats, Labor 22 and Shinui 14. Like Haaretz, it projected the right-wing bloc overall as commanding 61 seats. It said it questioned 1,000 people but gave no margin of error.

Another survey, conducted by Geocartographia for Israeli army radio showed Likud getting 32 seats, Labor 20 and Shinui 15. The radio did not give its poll's margin of error.

The surveys were taken after Haaretz printed a leaked Justice Ministry document that showed that police were investigating Sharon and his sons in connection with a $1.5 million loan they received from a South Africa-based businessman to cover payback of illegal campaign funds from a previous election.

Likud was already losing momentum because of a scandal over alleged payoffs, shakedowns and other corruption in internal elections for its list of candidates for parliament.

Sharon denounced the report about the investigation as "disgraceful political slander," and said he would counter it with documents and facts.

Arabs Win, Sharon Loses